1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related generally to an electromagnetic power relay and, more particularly, to a power relay having a magnetic system and a set of contacts on a contact spring and a cooperating contact element, respectively, which are plugged into receptacle slots in the base of a relay housing and from which terminal rails extend to provide electrical connections to the contacts.
2. Description of the Related Art
A relay is disclosed in European published application 0 147 681 B1. This known relay includes solder and plug terminals situated as a straight extensions of the terminal rails which are linked to the contacts so that the terminals lie in planes along the outside surfaces of the housing. It is not possible to mount such a relay on to a printed circuit board directly next to an identical relay or to some other equipment having open metal parts, since the terminals of the relays would be too close to one another and the required insulating distances, including the air and creepage paths, required for high current terminals is not sufficient.
Although it is also known in relays t displace similar terminal rails which have solder and plug terminals applied to the rail extensions at the end face of the relay closer together an away from the outside walls of housing from the very outset, it is then not possible to utilize the entire relay width for the width of the contact elements. This leads either to an enlargement of the overall width of the relay to compensate for the relatively narrower contact elements, or to a reduced cross section of the contact elements and therefore a lower current carrying capacity. It is precisely in high current relays in which optimally small dimensions are a critical matter, that it is important to use the entire relay width for the dimensions of the contact elements.
It has been proposed to crimp the terminal rails at a location outside of the housing at the end face of the relay. In this case, too, the required insulating distance from the outside edge of the housing for mounting the relays adjacent one another is not established at the portion of the rail before the crimped portion.